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Too Much Baggage? Keep The Fruit And Fibre…Lose The Pants!

Two days to go and then I’ll be off into the bright blue yonder. I just hope that I come back through the bright blue yonder, after all, I have the promised arrival of the super-duper fridge freezer to look forwards to! I also have The Sleeping Field back from proofing and awaiting my last draft. See how little things mean a lot to someone like me?

I have started packing – well I would, wouldn’t I – I’m an organising freak. I very cleverly changed the scales from pounds to kilos (a simple button underneath but…) and popped on, weighing first myself and then yours truly plus case and was amazed at how little I’d packed, just 4k, and in the other case, the one I’m sharing with my cousin, Dawn, because she needs more space for dresses and heels (what’s a dress? Heels?) I’d packed a mere 5k. So I’ve now decided to pack my pillow (totally necessary for my chronic neck problem) an extra pair of boots, a family size box of Fruit and Fibre and two boxes of Quaker Oat bars.

I’m considering a tin of tuna and maybe some instant porridge. As I jokingly said to Richard yesterday, ‘If the case weighs a bit heavy I can always take out a pair of knickers.’

Richard (who was driving at the time) said, ‘Yeah, that’ll reduce the weight by 3k.’

Cheeky sod. I had to retaliate with, ‘Yes, Richard dear, but they’re still not as big as yours!’

Well they’re not. I can’t grow plants anywhere near the washing line because when I peg out Richards grundies they cast too much shadow, and as you know, not much grows in shadow! Well, not dense shadow.

You all know what I freak I am regarding my chucks and Chea, so I am winding myself up nicely, worrying if they will be OK, even though lovely Lauren from two doors up is coming in five million times a day. She is popping round today to receive her instructions. These will be passed to her verbally and on a ream of paper, written in upper case, with a marker pen, instructions underlined and highlighted. Lauren has been looking after my animals now for the last fifteen years but the poor love still has to go through the rigmarole of being spoken to like an idiot who doesn’t know one end of a chuck from the other or how to tear the top from a sachet of cat food.

Chea has already sensed that something is very different in her paradise home. There are clothes being ironed with a scary thing that hisses and spits more than the wildest cat. She has never witnessed me ironing before and frankly neither have many other people. Life’s too short, and creases in clothes take the eye away from creases in faces! Just joking.

Chea tugged at my heart yesterday when she played the sympathy card and curled up inside the bag that I was packing. When I walk out of the house on Saturday, I won’t be able to look at her. You see! THIS is why I never go anywhere. I can’t stand the guilt and those little eyes that blink tears and silently say, ‘Don’t go.’

When we had our ‘previous’ pets, Meg (collie) Oscar (Burmese cat) and Mishka (moggie cat) we hardly went anywhere. Lauren would look after the cats for a weekend and Meg would always come with us so we NEVER went abroad and mainly holidayed on the east coast. It suited us and it was perfect dog-walking country. Also, because we had Meg, we only ever went away in the winter or early spring, before the weather warmed up. We always said that when the threesome passed away we wouldn’t have any more animals because they had restricted us for the last nineteen years and ruled our lives. When the last oldie, Mishka, died at the age of nineteen, we were finally free to visit distant horizons.

After a year of so-called total freedom, and going absolutely nowhere, we had to accept that we are just simple souls taking pleasure in the simple things and happy in our own skins. I do feel sorry for people who live only for holidays and die in the in-between bits and yes, I do know people like that!

Hence the arrival of Chea because, given the choice, it seems that we prefer animals to Arizona? We don’t regret having her one little bit, but I do feel massively guilty leaving the little love for four days. When I come home I know that I will have to grovel to get back in favour but I can ‘do’ grovel. It doesn’t come easily or naturally but I can do it. And to be perfectly honest and frank, if it wasn’t for the fact that we are going to the villa that my brother has recently bought, we wouldn’t be going at all.

So, I will take my leave and if there are no gremlins on the wing I hope to be back soon.

Take care my lovelies x

PS A huge welcome to all new followers and thank you all for your likes and comments. I’d bring you all a Spanish donkey or a Spanish flea back but I have to watch my weight allowance! x

5 thoughts on “Too Much Baggage? Keep The Fruit And Fibre…Lose The Pants!”

Hello Gail, have a wonderful holiday and look forward to Sleeping Field. I think Chea is demanding that she must come too, she wants to stowaway. Have a good break, and relax after all your trials and tribulations.

i think being a soul happy in your own skin and (I prefer to say) happy where you are (rather than not going anywhere) is a very positive place to arrive at – particularly if it means that you decide to get more animal companions! Now, for a second there I thought you were going to use the extra free kilos to pack the cat. Now that would be something! I recently heard of a cat that stowed away in the wheel arch of a car and became stray many miles from home when it, terrified, decamped and ran off at the destination! Apparently there was also once a frozen illegal immigrant who dropped off the descending nose wheel of a jumbo jet and landed in the veggie patch of some poor unsuspecting self-sufficiency freak aroundabouts Heathrow! Where was I? Ah yes, well I quite share your anguish about leaving the animals behind. Speaking as someone who has been left holding the can for a cluck of chucks I can assure you it’s not much easier being on the responsibility end of things…